


The Cat, the Mouse, and the Wardrobe

by lost_spook



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Animal Transformation, Gen, Pre-Series, Transformation, Trope Bingo Round 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a lot harder completing an assignment when you're not your usual shape...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cat, the Mouse, and the Wardrobe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Trope Bingo square "Transformations" and 100 Element Prompt 4 - Sapphire & Silver & Lead - crackfic and physical transformation.
> 
> Set pre-series, 1760s.

There’s a cat, a mouse, and a dog in the bed chamber. The dog – an English Mastiff, lion amongst hounds – is waiting, alert, by the door. The cat sits beside the wardrobe and watches the mouse’s progress intently as it climbs its way upwards, past the drawers at the bottom, up along the carvings of the cabinet doors, to pause on the top.

Sapphire raises herself on all fours and moves forward, shifting her position to keep the mouse – Silver – in view. She stretches herself, still fascinated by her new form. She’s inconveniently smaller, but more flexible, and able to pick up different information from her surroundings – sound and scent especially. It’s been imposed upon her, though, and is proving more intrusive than her usual shape. She would like to explore it, but not allowing this transformation to prevent her from closing the crack in time is too important.

Silver runs lightly along the top of the wardrobe and then attempts to squeeze into it, where they left the door ajar. In the process, he tries hanging from the door by his tail.

_Silver. I’m sure mice can’t do that_ , she points out, simultaneously amused and alarmed. 

He stops, and then slips, nearly falling, as she feared, but then he flails and scrabbles about, hanging onto the edge of the door before he squeezes inside it. There’s further panicked squeaking as he lands somewhere in there, unseen by her. His antics have achieved one thing: the carved wooden door swings open.

_That wasn’t helpful, Sapphire_ , says Silver, poking his nose and whiskers back out. He then moves round in a circle, chasing his tail, until he catches it in his paws. _Well, what is it for, then?_

_Silver. The dress. This is important._ Sapphire watches him and twitches: her interest in his progress is more than matched by her cat-self, but for very different reasons. Of all the things she can newly sense, Silver is what’s holding her attention. Lead, she’s aware of, but more distantly – or at least, until he suddenly starts an unearthly howling behind her, causing all her fur to stand on end.

_Lead?_

The noise ceases, to her relief.

_Lead_ , Silver adds, from inside the wardrobe, _are you hurt?_

Leads sounds as unperturbed as ever, though maybe slightly less cheerful. _Looks like dogs can’t sing. They can’t laugh, either._

_No_ , agrees Silver. _And I very much hope you don’t plan on trying again. You’ll bring everyone in here and I’m not sure we’re in a condition to deal with them._

_I can_ , says Lead, unafraid, and still large and powerful enough to scare any awkward human out of the room if they come wandering in. _Don’t you worry, little mouse. You get on with what you’re doing._

_Little mouse?_ Silver returns, a quivering furry bundle of indignation.

Sapphire smiles, briefly and inwardly. Dogs can’t laugh, and cats can’t smile. _Well, you are, Silver. From a purely objective point of view._

_I am still a technician, a specialist_ , says Silver. He pauses. _Regardless of appearances to the contrary_. 

Sapphire understands what Silver means. She is fighting to retain control, too: she is an operator. She may be currently shaped as a white cat, but she must fight the reactions that go with that. She broke her concentration on the time leaking through the gap with Lead’s howling and she’s finding it hard to regain it – as soon as she turns her attention back to the wardrobe and the articles inside it, she’s so very aware of the mouse – of Silver.

Silver has reached the dress itself now, biting and pulling at the embroidery that seems to be the central focus for time’s attack, but Sapphire loses herself for a moment, advancing a step, her tail lashing, and then she falls still.

_Hurry, Silver_ , she says, forcibly taking hold of her thoughts again. 

He turns around, that tantalising tail moving again. _You could help. You’ve got better teeth – and claws._

_Yes. They’re retractable_ , says Sapphire, casting a downward glance, still fascinated by her new abilities and limitations. _But I can’t. I need to close that crack again._ If she can, she adds to herself. Her powers seem to be slowly diminishing; she’s moulding herself to fit her form and she shudders at the idea. She stares up at the shape behind Silver – it’s white and looks more like a floating cobweb than anything else – trying to drive it back with the force of her mind. She pushes, and it wavers and then fades. She’s still able to do it.

Silver breaks another thread. _Sapphire, is something wrong?_

_This form_ , she says. _It’s trying to shape my thoughts, my behaviour. It makes it harder to work._

_Oh_ , says Silver, and bites another hole in the fabric. _It is distracting, isn’t it? Do you know how many times this heart beats in one minute?_

_Somewhere around six hundred. More or less._

_It’s – it’s -_ Silver pauses, his small form trembling with distaste at the excessive awareness of mortality that has been forced on him. He can’t find the words, but she understands, and feels afraid with him.

Sapphire moves forward, drawn by the sight of the mouse. She can’t help herself. She rests her paws on the lower drawers. _In my case, it’s more… you, Silver. You’re very hard to ignore._

Silver destroys a tiny, delicate silk-thread flower. _Am I?_ he returns, flattered and amused at the idea, until he suddenly understands, and then he is outraged. _Sapphire!_

_So I suggest you hurry._

There’s no reply, and Sapphire watches the space behind Silver again, waiting for that tell-tale sign of the break to reappear.

_There_ , says Silver, eventually, if indistinctly, and the mouse gives a final tug with teeth and paws at the dress – and then, with a sudden squeak of dismay, falls out of the wardrobe.

Sapphire has no chance to evaluate if that has closed the breach or if there is more work to do. Both she and the cat are one in their reaction as she darts forward to catch the mouse. She doesn’t even think about it, barely registers the movement till she has him. She drops him from her jaws and presses a paw over his tail, her claws extended.

Form and essence battle furiously within her. It’s an unfamiliar sensation and at this moment, with her senses shouting to her about the mouse, she thinks form is winning.

And at that moment, the dress follows Silver in falling out of the wardrobe and on top of them both.

 

It’s Silver who lifts the dress from on top of her – Silver in his usual shape. She’s calmer now, enough to analyse that the pressure from the break must be easing and that the shock presumably pushed Silver to find the ability to switch back to his proper form.

He lifts Sapphire up by the scruff of her neck, though he then gathers her to him and strokes her fur. “Well, and what have you got to say for yourself? You were going to eat me!”

_I wouldn’t worry, Silver_ , she says, with all the dignity she can muster. _I’m sure you’d have proved to be indigestible._

“I don’t think that’s very funny,” Silver returns. “I should see if Lead’ll eat _you_ – see how you like it!”

_Silver, let go of me._

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” says Silver, tickling her under the chin and behind the ears. “I don’t suppose he would oblige me anyway, not in that.”

_Silver!_ And yet she finds it very hard not to purr in response to his attentions.

“Cats who try to eat technicians disguised as mice can hardly object when –”

Sapphire musters her mental strength, and interrupts him: _I’m going to change back, Silver. Whatever was forcing us into these shapes has gone and I can see… I can see how to return. So, you had better let go of me now, don’t you think?_

“I wouldn’t mind,” Silver says, with a grin, but he puts her back down onto the floorboards carefully, only pausing to give her fur one last stroke. 

_Lead_ , says Sapphire, reaching out for him. _Can you feel it, too? The pressure isn’t there any longer. We can be ourselves._

_Yes_ , Lead says. _You lead the way, Sapphire._

The two of them resume their usual forms together: one minute Silver is sitting at the bottom of the wardrobe with a white cat next to him and a large dog padding across the room towards them, and the next the three of them are standing together in human form again, as they should be.

“Well,” says Lead, “what next?”

Sapphire shakes her head at him. She hasn’t finished yet. She opens the wardrobe door and searches for the break in time. She doesn’t feel it, but she examines the inside of the heavy article of furniture thoroughly, running her hand down its sides and along the back.

“Why the animals, do you suppose?” Silver asks, with a curious note in his voice. “The pattern on the dress didn’t belong, of course, but it had nothing to do with the forms we took on.”

“The dress awoke a memory,” says Sapphire, her eyes glowing faintly as she completes her examination. “A memory that involved a similar gown, and the embroidery attached itself to this one, where it didn’t belong.”

“Yes, the gown is newly made, while the embroidery was sixteen years old.”

“I’d imagine that the animals were connected to the memory – something that happened, or perhaps even that they were a comfort to a child – and confronted with the memory, she wanted them back again, so intensely that time could use that against us.”

“Interesting,” says Silver. “I’d rather not be reduced to that again, though. And, Sapphire, if you were actually intending to eat me, I may need to complain at our debriefing!”

Sapphire smiles. “I don’t think so, Silver. But for a moment –” She searches for words to try and explain what she’s thinking. She hasn’t considered form in quite this way before: that _her_ nature might change with it, that her outer shell might shape something of her inner nature. The idea disturbs her. This, of course, was Time’s doing – an imposition, something that fought her true self – but even her usual form, does that change who she is, how she thinks? It’s not for them to look back, so she doesn’t mark such things, but maybe it is true. She has travelled in more ways than one from the point where she started. Is that, she wonders, a failing or an advantage?

“Silver,” she says, and still can’t explain.

He forestalls her and takes her hand, kissing her palm lightly. “Yes, and no. We are –” He looks at her, tilting his head as he does so. 

“Yes,” she says, suddenly sure of herself. She has no more to add. She is Sapphire.

“On the other hand form is not _entirely_ irrelevant,” he says, as he casts a wickedly appreciative glance over hers.

Sapphire smiles again.

“Although,” Silver adds, “I still don’t see what the tail was for. The whiskers, now, the whiskers were quite fascinating –”

_Form is not completely irrelevant?_

“No,” says Lead from behind them. “Not if you want to sing, it turns out. But you know this wasn’t supposed to take this long. We’re wanted elsewhere.”

Sapphire nods, and then the three of them head towards the door way and vanish through it, leaving only a much-nibbled at yellow dress on the floor behind them.


End file.
